The administration and purchasing of Disability Employment Services in Australia
Information about the Inquiry
On 22 August 2011 the Senate referred the following matter to the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committees for inquiry and report.
The administration and purchasing of Disability Employment Services (DES) in Australia.
The terms of reference, available from the committee's website, relate to the Government's 2011-12 Budget announcement to undertake a competitive tender of the Disability Employment Services -Employment Support Services (ESS) program. The committee will consider the administration of DES and the impact of the proposed tender process on service providers and clients.
ESS provides employment support services for persons with a permanent disability and with an assessed need for more long-term, regular support in the workplace.
Specifically, the committee will consider during the course of this inquiry:
- the impact of the tendering process on all clients of disability employment services;
- the impact on the staff of ESS service providers;
- whether a competitive tendering process is the optimum means of testing the market and facilitating competitive efficiencies;
- whether current assessment methods of ESS are compatible with meeting the stated objectives of the Disability Services Act 1986;
- the design of the tender process; and
- the relationship between the proposed tender process and implementation of the proposed changes to the to the disability support pension.
Full
terms of reference can be found on the committee's website.
Submissions should be received by 26 September 2011. The reporting date is 22 November 2011. The Senate granted an extension of time for reporting until 25 November 2011.
The Committee is seeking written submissions from interested individuals and organisations preferably in electronic form submitted online or sent by email to eewr.sen@aph.gov.au as an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. The email must include full postal address and contact details.
Alternatively, written submissions may be sent to:
Committee Secretary
Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committees
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Notes to help you prepare your submission are available from the website at https://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/wit_sub/index.htm. Alternatively, the Committee Secretariat will be able to help you with your inquiries and can be contacted on telephone +61 2 6277 3521 or facsimile +61 2 6277 5706 or by email to eewr.sen@aph.gov.au.
Inquiries from hearing and speech impaired people should be directed to Parliament House TTY number 02 6277 7799. Adobe also provides tools at http://access.adobe.com/ for the blind and visually impaired to access PDF documents. If you require any special arrangements to enable you to participate in the Committee's inquiry, please contact the Committee Secretariat.
Once the Committee accepts your submission, it becomes a confidential Committee document and is protected by Parliamentary Privilege. You must not release your submission without the Committee's permission. If you do, it will not be protected by Parliamentary Privilege. At some stage during the inquiry, the Committee normally makes submissions public and places them on its website. Please indicate if you want your submission to be kept confidential.
For further information, contact: Committee Secretary
Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committees
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia